Mind Over Matter
by Cennis
Summary: Molly Hooper had never thought herself to matter all that much.


۞

Molly Hooper had never thought herself to matter all that much.

As a girl, she had been more than content to play the shadow to her more glamorous friends. Like Ashley, with her pinched pink complexion and silky golden ringlets, or Hannah, who entered the room and was suddenly the centre of all within it. Just like everybody else, Molly too had been enraptured by such people, envious yet in awe of their easy confidence and flawless elegance. To the young girl, it had seemed that their every word was gospel. Just the fact that they deigned to be her friends surprised her and seemed to lend her that little bit more worth. She may not have shone as brightly as they did, but so long as she was caught in their rays, maybe she could, at the very least, sparkle.

As Molly grew older, she shed her puppy fat, lost that roundness to her face and aged a little more every day. The girls around her transformed from the cherubic little things that had the adults awwing and cooing into the princesses of fairy tales. And Molly waited her turn, sure that some day her own transformation was scheduled. That she would wake up, stumble to the mirror and find that her mousy brown hair had been granted a lustrous sheen, her eyes that doe-like quality that the boys her age seemed to like, and her figure would finally start to look more like it did in the magazines. But every morning of her teens was a disappointment, the same plain girl staring back at her, unchanged but for the new spots that appeared at the worst of times.

Molly was patient, but she was also a realist, and she accepted with increasing certainty that there was no midnight hour change that would make her beautiful. She would simply have to work with what she had, and what she had wasn't so terrible, even if it would never be the standard of beauty that she saw on the television and red carpets. So she bought some make-up and decorated her face, picked the type of clothes that she saw the other girls wearing, and tried very hard to like the things they did.

That was the hardest part, truth be told. Painting her face every morning and forking out for the designer labels stung well enough, but trying to feign interest in celebrities whose only call to fame was managing to be the child of one musician or another, that was exhausting. She would see the other girls getting so excited over which big name was doing what with who, and realise that she did react to things in the same way they did, but not to media hype. No, it was things like getting top of the class for Science that incited that bubble of happiness in her, but somehow she doubted the other girls would much care for talk of dissection. But at least when she pretended to be interested in those things, she was just one of the girls, and that was reward enough.

By the time she was at college, Molly had never so much as kissed a boy. It wasn't for lack of interest. She _wished_ she could be one of those people that truly didn't have any interest. At least that would be less embarrassing than admitting, even to herself, that nobody wanted her. No amount of wishful thinking could turn her into the person she tried to be with her make-up and pretty clothes. She may have looked the part, but outside of mimicking, she had no idea how to _be _that model woman. Men would talk to her sometimes, when she wasn't around her more outgoing and interesting friends, and they seemed keen enough, but then Molly's mind would go blank. The words would hide from her no matter how desperately she sought them. She had no experience to draw back on. Inevitably, the man either got bored or thought she was giving him the brush-off, and that was that.

By the time Molly hit twenty, she had resigned herself to being the lady with half a dozen cats, all with their own distinctive personality. As soon as she left University, she'd buy her first one, she decided. Better to get a head start, after all. She had always been fond of the name Toby.

Through University, she lost the drive to try to be the way she thought people would like. It was far too much effort when she had dissertations to do and professors breathing down her neck. If she could not be beautiful then she would focus on being the best she could be in her field of work. That resolve paid off more than she could have imagined, all her free time taken up by studying, and then it was time to specialize.

It was after she left University and began her studying at St. Bartholomew's that her love life got a jump start. It began with a medicine student from another faculty. His name was Simon, he was a year older than her and even more awkward, if that were at all possible. He struggled just as much as she did to find common topics for them to talk about and his manner ranged from aloof to overbearing at the drop of a hat. To be frank, they didn't get on all that well, but he did this thing. Any time he made Molly laugh – _really _laugh, the kind of laughter that ended in a snort – he would give her a bashful little smile, genuinely pleased to have gotten such a reaction out of her. That endearing smile compelled Molly to drag the relationship out for far longer than it should have. It ultimately ended, not with a bang but a whimper, and they went their separate ways.

After Simon came Robb, one of the nurses, a fair bit older than her. He and Simon were as different as night and day. Robb was never without something to say, even when silence would have been preferable. He always sort of reminded Molly of a Labrador, to be honest. He was so excitable, treating everybody like they were his best friends, whether he had known them for ten years or ten minutes. Unfortunately, he really was friendly with _everyone, _and the concept of monogamy was not one he was familiar with. That relationship ended with a bang, Molly slamming her flat door shut in his face.

There were a few more after him, spanning over the next few years, but never anything long-term. The men she would have liked to have seen for longer were just looking for a fling. The ones who wanted to see her for longer just didn't have a place in her heart. Wasn't that always the way? That all came to a halt with the arrival of Sherlock Holmes.

It wasn't love at first sight, but it was certainly the closest thing you could get. During the following years, Molly would often wonder just _what _had captured her heart so much about Sherlock. It certainly wasn't his warmth or compassion, that was certain. Nor was it purely superficial, though the man wasn't lacking in that department. Where Molly considered herself entirely plain, Sherlock Holmes was otherworldly. His kaleidoscope eyes, dark hair set against such pale skin, and a voice as soft as sin. Most of the time, Molly would think it was his brilliance that attracted her. It couldn't be denied that he really was a force to be reckoned with. Seeing so much, but at the same time, understanding so little of it. Oh, he thought he understood it, with his rambling of facts and inferences. But then he would look so genuinely baffled when his comments were taken unkindly, as though he really hadn't meant to sound so callous. His degree of cruelty could be astounding, yet even more so when she realised he really didn't intend it that way. Maybe that was the reason for her attraction. It wasn't his looks or his genius, but the way that he seemed just slightly out of focus from the rest of them, like when somebody is taking a picture and one of the subjects moves. Where everybody else was clear and distinctive in the photograph, Sherlock was blurred, standing out because he wasn't as perfectly captured.

It sometimes seemed that Sherlock was going to just float away while the rest of them were tethered to the ground, and Molly found herself wanting to ground him too, to stop him from disappearing in the blink of an eye.

It was clear from the outset that Sherlock had no desire for that to happen, of course. As much as it hurt for Molly to know when somebody didn't like her, it stung all the more when Sherlock seemed to have absolutely no opinion on her at all. Like she wasn't worth the time it would have taken to form even the smallest of opinions. Dislike hurt, but indifference cut deep.

And yet.

"_You do count. You've always counted and I've always trusted you."_

Molly Hooper had never really been important to anyone. She existed in the shadows of the more brilliant and shining, attracted to their splendour as though hoping to absorb some of it for herself. She had come to believe that she would never really matter, especially not to one of those brilliant people like Sherlock Holmes. But when the chips were down, it had been her that he had come to, her that had the ability to help.

Insecurity was so deeply ingrained in her that she accepted she was being used, did what was asked of her anyway. But once her use had more or less passed and Sherlock's name glinted on a marble headstone, he was still there. Curled up on her couch, paler than pale, seeming like he was going to fade away more than ever.

And Molly realised that maybe she did matter, but not in the way she had always tried to. It was not a lover, a girlfriend, a smitten colleague that Sherlock Holmes needed. What he needed was the reassurance that he was right. The knowledge that John would be safe in his absence. But more than anything, for one person to keep his existence alive when everybody else believed him dead.

_RICHARD BROOK WAS REAL_

Armed with a can of spray paint, Molly Hooper was determined to do something that mattered, to prove that she really did count.

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**Author's Note:** _I don't even know. It started out as an Irene/Molly thing but then I got bored and my Molly feels took over. Molly Hooper Appreciation Life~_


End file.
